To celebrate 101 years of Indian cinema, the University of Newcastle, NSW has organized a two day event beginning with a free film screening followed by an academic conference.
Bollywood 101 Film Festival on February 20 will start at 6 pm at Tower Cinema. The Film Festival will be attended by special guests including Arun Kumar Goel -Consul General of India, Prof Caroline McMillian- Vice Chancellor of New Castle University, Anupam Sharma-a leading expert on Indian cinema and other well known Indian VIP’s and filmmakers.
Bollywood 101 Film Festival will feature three short films/documentaries including I Am Megha, Dancing to the BollywoodTunes and Indian Aussies: Terms & Conditions Apply.
The Bollywood political thriller Raajneeti (Politics – 2010) will be screened at 8.30pm. Rajneeti is a 2010 Indian political thriller and the storyline of the film revolves around the Indian democracy and Indian elections.
Directed and produced by Prakash Jha, it stars Ajay Devgan, Nana Patekar, Ranbir Kapoor, Katrina Kaif, Arjun Rampal, Manoj Bajpayee and Naseeruddin Shah in the lead roles. It is the story of a few people who control the destiny of millions and their unstoppable ambition to achieve it. The film is being screened courtesy Prakash Jha Productions and Screen Hunter Central Coast.
Bollywood and Its Other(s)Academic conference will be held on February 21 ,2014 at the TV Studio, ICT Building, DCIT, University of Newcastle, Callaghan.
The conference will include presentations and panel discussions on finding ways to work on combined film ventures between the two countries. Topics include Bollywood’s representation of Indian other(s) i.e. religious and ethnic minorities, indigenous population, Kashmir and its people as well as Bollywood and sexuality, queer issues, women in Bollywood, movie vamps, song and dance and item numbers. Academics and media industry practitioners will be joined by visiting scholars from India and Australia.
Both events are being organised by Dr Vikrant Kishore and Dr Susan Kerrigan from University of Newcastle, alongwith Dr Amit Sarwal (Deakin University) and Parichay Patra (Monash University).
Dr Kishore and Dr Sarwal note that the critical examination of the alternative histories of the national popular industry would help us to look critically at the alternative histories of the nation as well.
Possible issues of discussion in the conference include ‘Alternative historiography’, ‘History beyond the nation-state paradigm’, ‘Bollywood’s representation of Indian other(s) i.e. religious and ethnic minorities’, ‘indigenous population’, ‘Kashmir and its people’, ‘people belonging to the North-Eastern Hill states’; ‘Bollywood as alter(normative)’, ‘sexuality’, ‘queer issues’, ‘women in Bollywood’, ‘movie vamps’, ‘item numbers’, ‘Bollywood songs, dance and music’, ‘Bollywood stars and their representations’, ‘Bollywood’s marginal genres’, ‘the horror film’, ‘Bollywood vis-à-vis other industries especially the South Indian industries and the linguistic identity politics etc
Dr Amit Sarwal’s Australia-India Interdisciplinary Research Network (AIIRN) is the official publishing partner of this event that is being sponsored by Screen Hunter Central Coast, Kieren Australia Pty Ltd., Indian Association of Newcastle.and Chakras Performing Arts..
